Project Management to Web Development. Why I learned to code through a Bootcamp.
I started my working life 17 years, 11 Months and 3 Days ago *gulp*. That was hard to type.
In the beginning, there was an impression that I had no business being in tech.
I always wanted to work in tech, understanding how things worked always fascinated me. For various reasons (I suck at maths, or so I was told by my Year 8 Maths Teacher, or the science teacher who managed tech at my school gleefully telling me that girls aren’t interested in software and hardware), I thought I had no business working with technology or learning computer science.
So while I spent most of the late 90’s tying up the phone line at home on the internet, breaking my parents’ computer with various viruses, and tinkering with HTML, I didn’t bother completing the pre-requisites to get into Computer Science. Instead I focused on arts and humanities.
After High School, I did my first year in a Social Science Degree, however I was directionless and completely lost. I quit Uni and I went out into the big wide corporate world. I was still interested in tech so, …..I hustled.
I pretty much told every Manager (and anyone that would listen) that I wanted to get exposure to networking, applications development and IT support — anything where I could understand how the companies’ IT system worked. I was young, I was really keen but had no education in Computer Science. In those early days I had some great support from managers and colleagues, but I also received a lot of resistance. I would categorise the resistance as two things: plain old sexism, and the impression that you can’t work in tech if you don’t have a Computer Science degree.
Patience! I am getting to the bootcamp part!
Through hard work and maneuvering, I managed to get into IT and eventually had the opportunity to work with great people and deliver some awesome projects. I loved the challenge, I loved the changing pace of technology…. And yet I felt unfulfilled. I felt I was moving away from the things I loved — technology and solving problems.
I had some ideas about building my own digital products, I read everything on the Start Up Community in Melbourne, I read ‘The Lean Start Up’, I inhaled every podcast available about start ups and the tech industry. I knew there was something else out there for me, so I decided to learn to code.
At first I started with online tutorials. I have many, many unfinished Udemy courses. I then completed an iOS course at General Assembly, part time. I really wanted to build out my app idea. It was hard — I struggled working and studying and the learning pace felt too fast for me.
I built the app (pretty sure a broken version of the app is on my GitHub). Then I realised…..this should probably be a Web App. Ooops. Nevertheless, my coding journey had begun.
The epiphany.
There was no epiphany. I kept talking to colleagues, family, and friends about wanting to code, about wanting to build meaningful products that solved problems, I wanted to make a REAL difference. I didn’t want to be just a manager anymore, I wanted to be a creator. And I thought f*ck it.
Enter General Assembly Web Development Immersive
I decided to study with General Assembly because it was 12 weeks, not too long (unlike this testimonial!), not too short. From my prior experience, I knew the staff were friendly and supportive, and from my research I learned that their graduates were getting jobs in the industry. GA also had strong ties in the technology community which was a big plus for me.
Am I stupid or just crazy?
I’m not going to serenely skip over the obvious part. The course isn’t cheap and I quit my job and jumped into unknown oblivion. I also had friends and family that surely thought I had completely lost my mind.
Let’s be clear though, I am extremely privileged to have had the opportunity to do this. Not everyone has the time or money. I was sure about what I was doing because I prepared:
1. Before making the decision I did a finance spreadsheet, I reviewed my budget, not once, not twice but 50 million times. I worked that sucker until I knew exactly how much I needed to live by.
2. Contingency (It’s the Project Manager in me). I added a buffer to everything I had costed out in my budget. Typically after the course it takes up to 3 months to be employed. I added a buffer of 6. You never know!
3. I said goodbye to getting wasted on Saturday night and spending Sunday lying on the couch drinking diet coke and binging on Netflix. You have no life for 3 months. You live breathe, and dream code. I pre-warned family and friends so they understood my situation.
4. I made a pact with myself. Give it everything. If I’m not willing to give this 110% of my effort I may as well not bother.
Then, I applied.
12 weeks of insane coding frenzy ensued
HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery , Ruby, Sinatra, Ruby on Rails, RESTful API, Postgresql, Gulp, Web Pack, Node.js, Express, React, RSpec, MiniTest, Heroku, Bootstrap, Bulma, Skeleton, Materialize, OOP, Functional Programming, declarative and imperative programming, Data Structures.
On top of this, there are onsite visits to different companies, talks from people in the industry and meetups.
It’s a lot… a hell of a lot. I coded every day — before class, after class, I even dreamt about defects in my code and how to solve them. It was hard, I had a few “I can’t do this moments” but I pushed through it. The beauty of it was I didn’t have to think about meetings, projects, work politics, I just needed to focus on coding the task at hand.
I can’t even describe the elation you have when your code is broken and you feel stupid and useless and then you finally figure it out and fix it.
And then it ended.
It wasn’t quite a caterpillar to butterfly transformation. A 12 week bootcamp has given me the fundamentals in programming. I’m a junior developer, I am not a coding “ninja” or “rockstar”, I can’t build you Facebook. I know enough to be dangerous but I still have a long way to go.
I can tell you I have renewed inspiration and motivation to continue working in technology, and I have the fundamental skills to develop apps. I’m even planning to build that first product I wanted to develop, with help from some of my classmates!
Finally, I’ve found a really awesome tech community to be a part of, and the learning will never end.
I should have done this 10 years ago…..if it existed.
and I lived happily ever after…maybe
It has been 18 hours, 36 minutes and 50 seconds since I finished the course. I am officially on the job hunt and it is daunting.
I have a schedule of what I want to achieve everyday on a Trello Board (the Project Management side, again!). If you don’t use it, you lose it, coding every day is not an option, it’s a must and so is completing coding challenges.
Now the struggle to find work begins. This is the hard part, and while there is an outcomes program, I need to hustle again, just like I hustled 17 years ago. I’m scared, but I’m also really excited about the future.
